Court's decision viewed as step toward equal treatment for gays

WASHINGTON -- A day after the Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy law, legal scholars and activists predicted the court's broad recognition of privacy rights for gays would bolster future gay-rights cases and could potentially spill over into such areas as doctor-assisted suicide and the fight over legal abortion.

At the court, which ended its term Friday, the impact of Thursday's ruling was obvious. Citing that decision, which said government has no business dictating what consenting adults, gay or straight, do in their bedrooms, the justices on Friday sent back to Kansas the case of a gay teenager sentenced to 17 years in prison for having sex with another teenage boy.

Matthew Limon's sentence stems from an incident shortly after he turned 18 when he performed consensual oral sex on a 14-year-old boy at a residential school for developmentally disabled youth where they both lived. If Limon had engaged in oral sex with a 14-year-old girl, his sentence would have been limited to one year because Kansas' "Romeo and Juliet" law makes consensual sexual relations with a minor a lesser crime if both participants are teens, and if they are opposite-sex partners.

James Esseks, litigation director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, said that like the Texas sodomy law, the Kansas law treats gay people more harshly than it does straight people who engage in the same behavior.

"States can no longer get away with that kind of unequal treatment," Esseks said. "We hope that this is the first of many wrongs that (Thursday's) ruling will correct."

On Friday, the ACLU launched a new "Get Busy, Get Equal" campaign, complete with a Web site (www.aclu.org/getequal) to help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people fight discrimination in other areas of their lives.

Adams, of Lambda Legal, said that while the court's decision in the Texas case was "a ringing declaration in support of the civil rights of gay people," there is still much work to be done to make gays truly equal in the eyes of the law and society.

Among the target areas, he said, are securing the visitation and custody rights of gay parents, allowing gay people to marry, adopt children or serve as foster parents, and protecting them from violence and discrimination.

"The vast, vast majority of American people believe anti-gay discrimination in hiring decisions is wrong, and many people believe it's illegal, although in most states (including Texas) it is not," he said.

Randall Ellis, executive director of the Austin-based Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, said the court's ruling should prevent state lawmakers from denying gays workplace protection and make it harder to pass bills like the "Defense of Marriage Act" that Gov. Rick Perry signed into law this year. It also could help discourage other anti-gay legislation, like that filed this year by Rep. Robert Talton, R-Houston, aimed at keeping gays and lesbians from serving as foster parents, Ellis said.

The Constitution's guarantee of "equal protection under the law" remains years away from being a reality in Texas, Ellis said, but this week's decision pushed those concerns much further ahead.

"We have taken three giant steps forward, and this opens the door to full recognition to gay relationships," he said.

Shackelford, whose group filed a "friend-of-the-court" brief on behalf of 70 Texas legislators supporting Texas' sodomy law, played down the ruling's power, saying it likely won't bring all the social change liberals hope for.

"I agree with Justice (Antonin) Scalia that the ruling opens the door to challenge all kinds of sexual conduct laws," he said. "But I don't think they're going to win."

Gay-rights advocates, however, said even Scalia's scathing dissent could ironically work in their favor. One of the court's most conservative justices, Scalia warned that the ruling puts in jeopardy laws prohibiting prostitution, bigamy and adultery. He also predicted the decision would bolster arguments for gays to marry, adopt children or serve in the military.

"We'd be thrilled if those predictions come true," Adams said. "We hope to make an honest man of Justice Scalia."